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Track Listings
| 1. Chloe In The Afternoon |
| 2. Cruel |
| 3. Cheerleader |
| 4. Surgeon |
| 5. Northern Lights |
| 6. Strange Mercy |
| 7. Neutered |
| 8. Champagne |
| 9. Dilettente |
| 10. Hysterical Strength |
| 11. Year Of The Tiger |
Product Description
Review
Strange Mercy, however, is a little underwhelming, full of ideas but struggling to find a coherent voice. Her charismatic performances still exhibit the trademark confidence that makes her so intriguing, but the album's songwriting fails to deliver a standout track like Actor Out of Work or the eccentric, disorientating Marrow (both from 2009's Actor). There are flashes of brilliance throughout, but opening track Chloe in the Afternoon - in which guitars crunch against woozy fairground keyboards and a stuttering, programmed beat until Clark attempts clumsily to cram the song's title into the chorus - does her no favours.
This is especially frustrating when she follows it with Cruel, a far more rounded, melodious track full of Disney-esque strings, galloping but simple rhythms, fuzzily ripped guitar lines and Clark's tender but never reticent vocals. Northern Lights is grittier, guitars grating against a persistent snare tattoo, Vincent's vocals heading into ethereal realms as noise bursts around her, while Hysterical Strength further confirms her instrumental prowess. Surgeon, too - which opens with a tip of the hat to John Barry's You Only Live Twice - is a moody and atmospheric song that takes unexpected turns, especially its weird foray into the kind of synth-pop perfected by Wally Badarou in the 1980s.
But throughout there's a distance between performer and audience: despite being teased by notable lines like "I don't want to be a cheerleader no more", "If I ever meet the dirty policeman who roughed you up" and 'Oh, America, can I owe you one?" it's hard not to feel cheated by irritatingly impenetrable lyrics like "By your heel heal my hurt horse hair whip be your floor", as though she daren't let us get too close. Champagne (with its melodic reference to Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah) and Year of the Tiger prove that she can be smart as well as approachable, but ultimately Strange Mercy sounds like her best record still lies ahead, once she feels a little more at ease with balancing her obviously multiple talents.
--Wyndham Wallace
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Product Description
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Customer Reviews
away. Wonderfully strange music from an idiosyncratic performer quite
out on her own in the wild-woman-walking-on-the-left-hand-side-of-
the-middle-of-the-the-road-stakes! A maker of magical sonic worlds
quite unlike anything else out there. A truly talented maverick.
('Black Rainbow' still gives me the chills every time I listen to it!)
Her new album is no-less full of wonderment. 'Strange Mercy', her third
release, drags us willingly back into familiar territory but there is a
greater edge and power in these eleven songs than she has unleashed before.
The opening track 'Chloe In The Afternoon' is a stunning outpouring of
raw and unbridled energy. The savage guitar hits us in the solar plexus
like a runaway bulldozer; the pounding drums a call to pagan worship and
at its heart Ms Clarke's delicate and contrasting vocal delivery strives to
find some kind of still centre in the chaos. A solid mass of contradictions.
Its polar opposite is the quite beautiful 'Champagne Year', a deeply
affecting melody shot through with ethereal pedal-steel guitar, dark
subterranean beats and glistening synth arpeggios. A web of enchantment.
Her pithy personal lyrical observations on 'Cheerleader' (a song about NOT
wanting to be a cheerleader) mix pathos and dry humour in equal measure and
final track 'Year Of The Tiger' struts and swaggers its stuff magnificently!
It is to the glorious invention 'Cruel' that we should turn, however, to
encounter Ms Clarke's finest moment. The heavenly harmonies and blistering
guitar frame a song of infectious and near-hysterical widescreen extravagance.
Its sheer bravado made me laugh out loud. Three and a half minutes of pure joy!
'Strange Mercy' deserves our full attention and rapturous applause.
Highly Recommended.
Her third album is her most mercurial yet, a dense clash of post-punk fuzz and baroque-pop rumination, with esoteric 'new elements, from atonal electro-jazz to synth scratches to cheeky talkbox.
While she was charmingly fey on 2007 debut Marry Me [CD] and caustic on 2009 follow-up "Actor", she's introspective and fanciful here, crafting a single mother's lullaby on the title track, and repenting for her insecure past on "Cheerleader".
Yet she's no passive pom-pom girl: Clark's complex femininity, both self-possessed and keenly evolving, is what makes her music so powerful and fascinating. S. Anderson
didn't know what to expect
bought it largely on the basis she'd sang with the polyphonic spree
real... Read more
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